


Joined Hands and Hearts

by greygerbil



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Arranged Marriage, M/M, Wedding Night, victorian london
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-23 01:27:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17673791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: At thirty-seven, Clement Quincey had not expected to find a mate anymore, but his uncle has plans for him as well as the legal right to marry Clement to whomever he pleases. With a groom who is way too young and much too handsome to be faithful at his side, Clement is convinced his marriage is already unsalvageable before it has begun. However, Benjamin Norwood is quite intrigued by the man his father chose for him.





	Joined Hands and Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GloriousGoblinQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriousGoblinQueen/gifts).



> Hello there! I really liked your prompt and I hope this treat is the kind of thing you were looking for.
> 
> Regarding the intricacies of Omegaverse biology: I'm going with male omegas having a penis and a vagina for this story.

People kept telling Clement that he was lucky. The Norwood family was not so poor as most nobles who were looking to marry into money and while their younger son Benjamin might have missed a lecture here or there to amuse himself, as lively young men would, general opinion was that he wasn't such a no-good that one could expect he would never finish his his studies.

Clement, however, had been pretty happy before. Fifteen years ago, he’d inherited his mother’s business in the wool trade. His uncle was the only living relative who could have interfered in it, being an alpha and thus now the legal warden of Clement and all his assets, but he had been content for Clement to pay a portion of the profits to him and otherwise run the business as he pleased. Having worked in the trade from his days as a young boy, the workers respected Clement for the most part, despite him being an omega. Being blessed neither with great charm nor extraordinary handsomeness, and judged as too eccentric by many alphas for his running a business on his own, he had long given up on finding a mate, and he was just fine with that.

That was when his uncle had met the Norwoods.

His uncle had always suffered greatly under the implication that nothing but money distinguished his family, which was entirely comprised of merchants and their offspring, and found every opportunity to meet up with those of better birth. His own omega children were long married into other trading families to facilitate lucrative business deals, but when the elder Norwood had hinted that his second son, an alpha who could not hope to come into much of an inheritance, was still looking for a mate, his uncle had leapt at the chance. Clement was only informed that his uncle had decided to sell him off for the noble connection he had so longed for after all promises were made and hands shaken.

“I shouldn’t complain if I were you. Now your husband owns the business with you and you can keep all the money you make for your family. Besides, it’s not healthy, is it, being alone? Especially not at your age. Who knows how long your health holds up?”

Together with a mouthful of tea, Clement swallowed his outrage at the notion that he had to marry a caretaker at thirty-seven, simply nodding his head. However, his stomach turned when he considered that his future husband, twenty-two as he was, perhaps thought similar things. As a university student he would also have a lot of well-educated (and young, and beautiful) friends. He would go to salons, and some omegas even studied these days, affording him many opportunities to meet potential partners certainly more suited to whatever his temper was. All Clement knew were numbers and trading contracts and ledgers. His shelves full of penny dreadfuls were not likely to impress anyone of good breeding, and no one had ever expected him to keep a husband by means of his looks.

His uncle told Clement as he left his house that evening that he should find a hat to wear when he met his husband to hide the fact his reddish blond hair was not without its touches of grey these days.

-

Such subterfuge was unnecessary, though. Since classes were out for the semester, Benjamin was off visiting his sister in Edinburgh and Clement was informed that he would not get to see him until the wedding. By then, his nerves were as tightly pulled as the strings of a violin. He’d had to organise the ceremony by himself, which in theory was not an issue, as such things came rather natural to him, but much like his husband-to-be’s absence, it made him wonder if he was the only person giving this any thought. It had been obvious, of course, that Benjamin’s parents had simply been looking for someone to finance their son, but Clement wished they, as well as his fiancé, had at least been kind enough to pretend a little.

On the day of the wedding, Clement pulled a double breasted waist coat over his white shirt, put on striped formal trousers and fasted a pearl-coloured silk ascot tie around his neck. He did not like the white frock coat and dress boots in the same light colour much, wondering if he would manage to stain them before he even reached the church, but it was tradition to be dressed like this, after all. His long hair was tied back strictly. He probably should have gotten it cut, he thought, as he glanced at himself in the mirror. His uncle liked to say that Clement was too used to the company of clerks and sailors to be as fashionable as he could afford to be, which was likely true.

The whole way to Marylebone, Clement found himself incessantly tapping his food against the bottom of the carriage, until his uncle’s wife told him to stop, for God’s sake, before he made a hole into the sole of his shoe.

His husband’s family was already spread out over the pews in the small church, a crowd of unknown faces, about twenty, all told. There was also a collection of young men and women who were speaking and laughing too loudly in the seats close to the doors – friends of his husband’s, Clement guessed, just as pretty and radiant as he had feared.

He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, scrutinising him so closely that he barely dared to look back long enough to guess which one of them was the groom and instead ended up awkwardly surveying the stained glass images of saints and angels in the windows.

“Ah, there you are!”

The voice finally forced him out of his stasis. A man had separated out of the group in the back. He was terribly handsome, tall and broad-shouldered, with a wide grin and dark, warm eyes. His clothes were much like Clement’s, except his frock, waist-coat, trousers and shoes were all black, and he had an untrained elegance that made the whole ensemble look a lot better on him. He wore a pin on his lapel, silver and diamonds wrought into the shape of a flower.

“Good day, sir,” Clement said, bowing his head, silently and selfishly wishing that perhaps someone more plain and less personable had approached him, someone who showed a little more apprehension. Surely one should be grateful for a husband with good looks and broad smiles, and if Clement had been seventeen and as naive as the day was young in the morning, he may have been. Now all he could wonder, with a sinking feeling, was how he was supposed to keep a man like this interested?

“What, ‘sir’, I thought you are going to be my husband?” Benjamin asked, grasping him by the shoulders.

The sudden touch made Clement look up in surprise.

“Er, Benjamin?” he stammered, seconds too late.

His husband-to-be laughed at him. “That’s much better. I heard your name was Clement Quincey, which is...”

“Benjamin,” a woman’s voice to their left said sharply, “you two had better get ready for the ceremony. The priest is waiting.”

“My sister, Jane. You’ll get to know her, I’m sure! She’s got quite the grip on us all, even living all the way up in Edinburgh. Wouldn’t let me leave to London a day earlier than she allowed,” Benjamin introduced with an indulgent smile, letting go of Clement. The tall woman sitting behind Benjamin’s back had the same dark eyes, tan complexion and mass of thick, curly hair as him and was just as stunningly beautiful. Clement wondered if they had Italian or Spanish blood in them, or perhaps something from even further south on the globe. He supposed it didn’t much matter, really, but it stood in that moment to him as an example of all the things he didn’t know about his husband.

Clement bowed before Jane, unsure what to say under a look that barely tried to hide disapproval, and then quickly walked to the end of the aisle and out the door, hoping he could at least gain some favour by being obliging. Little girls and boys crowding at the entrance were carrying baskets of flowers that Clement didn’t remember ordering. They had to be from the groom’s family. Clement heard them chatter excitedly, hands already in the baskets, even though they would only be throwing the contents once the two of them walked out of the church again after the ceremony. It would have been a sweet picture if his heart hadn’t been stuck in his throat.

“You should take my arm,” Benjamin reminded him.

“Oh – yes, of course, thank you.”

Clement found himself wiping his palms on his trousers, hoping they were not too damp. Benjamin seemed so calm and settled, but Clement couldn’t say if that was a good thing. Perhaps all he wanted to do was to get this over with so he could go out drinking with his friends. Surely, no matter what was going through his head otherwise, he at least had to be put off by a grown man hemming and hawing his way through their first conversation like Clement was doing.

They strode down the aisle and Clement kept his eyes forward on the altar. It was a short ceremony, touching upon the usual points of holy matrimony, loyalty, and love. In the pauses when the priest leafed through the bible, Clement could hear quiet giggles and hushed voices from the direction where he had seen Benjamin’s friends sitting and blood rushed into his head as his fingers began to grow cold and numb around Benjamin’s arm from being held up stiff in the same position for minutes on end.

Finally, Benjamin stepped away and Clement let his fingers slide down as the priest told them to join hands and hearts. A small boy walked up to them, bearing on a red pillow a simple gold band, the mark of a bonded omega. Clement held out his hand, which was trembling with nerves, but Benjamin grabbed his wrist and kept it steady to slip the band on.

On their way outside, they walked into a shower of red rose petals and daises.

Clement had booked a room in a pub belonging to an old family friend down the street from the church, where Benjamin and him were going to leave their families eventually to drive home and do the deeds a wedding night called for. On the way, he saw his uncle talking excitedly to the elder Norwood and Jane nagging two dark-haired children. The cluster of young men and women were winking and grinning at Benjamin.

Once inside, Benjamin was separated from Clement by the current of the crowd and when Clement found him again, he had already rejoined his friends. Drinks were served alongside sandwiches and candied fruit laid out on plates. Candles were lit. The air smelled like woodsmoke and ale.

Clement talked briefly to his fathers-in-law and was introduced to Jane’s wife, a short, delicate omega woman who smiled like a porcelain doll. His uncle congratulated him on the match with a grin before he sank back into the joy of regaling his new noble family with some tale. Clement drifted from group to group, listening silently into conversations he didn’t manage to enter, until he found himself sitting alone on a bench under a window. In contrast to him, Benjamin was barely able to move a step across the room before he was assailed by someone. He seemed very popular with his own family as well as Clement’s, and with his easy manner, expansive gestures, and room-filling laugh, you needn’t ask why. Clement would have liked to talk to him, too, but he could barely manage to speak with his own cousins tonight. It was his own fault; his tongue felt like lead.

Eventually, one of the flower girls sat down beside him, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Clement offered her one of the pillows stuffed on his side at the bench and she smiled at him before curling up to sleep.

One person from his husband’s family might remember him fondly, Clement told himself, sipping his wine. He was growing tired, too. Alcohol always made him a little drowsy. He shouldn’t be drinking so much, but he also really did not want to be sober. Eventually, he got up to ask a maid for a blanket, with which he covered the girl.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Clement turned to see Benjamin.

“Emma was so excited for the flowers she didn’t sleep much last night, Harriet said. Her first wedding, how exciting is that? Harriet is my cousin, by the way.” Benjamin grinned at him. “Are you ready to leave?”

Clement wondered briefly if he was being made fun of. Benjamin must have seen him sitting here like a piece of unneeded furniture.

“If you wish,” he said.

“I guess we can steal one of my family’s carriages,” Benjamin mused, glancing over his shoulder. “They will just have to sit closer together on the way back.”

“That’s not necessary, sir – Benjamin. I ordered a carriage to wait for us here so we could go home undisturbed.”

“Ah, you thought of everything!” Benjamin smiled impishly. “If it’s that easy, what say you we sneak out of here? Otherwise, it’ll be an hour before we’ve said our goodbyes and God knows I love my family, but I haven’t said ten sentences to you yet.”

It was a rather impolite idea, but Clement was a little glad that after all the laughing he’d seen Benjamin do with his friends tonight, he would be the one in a on a joke with him for once. Lord, what a childish thought that was. Still, Clement nodded his head.

“There is a door in the back,” he said.

The servant’s entrance was easily located and they slipped through undetected into the warm June night. Gas lamps lit the streets where several carriages were waiting. Clement pointed out the one at the end of the row, a small vehicle that could house perhaps four people, closed, with curtains before the windows. Benjamin clambered inside as Clement gave the driver the address and then reached out to pull Clement in by the hand. After Clement had closed the door, they sat in twilight.

“It’s unusual, isn’t it? For you to bring me to _your_ home,” Benjamin noted.

It was what had been arranged, since Benjamin owned no property but a small rented flat whereas Clement had a house at a better part of the docks.

“Ah, it’s not so great... two floors above my office with six rooms each. I know you will probably want to keep your room closer to university, though.”

“I thought I’d be moving in with you.”

For the first time, Clement heard some uncertainty in his boisterous voice.

“You’re very welcome to,” Clement added hastily.

Benjamin fell silent for a moment.

“My father said you organised the wedding?”

“Yes.”

“And you run a trading business? By yourself?”

“I inherited it from my mother,” Clement said, as if that would soften the offence of doing what he did, wondering at the same time why he was apologising. It was the money they had picked him for, after all. “I have employees, of course, but I do run it. We deal mostly in wool. We have a few ships.”

His husband’s face was wrought by a frown for a moment before he broke out into laughter again.

“I must seem quite silly to you!” he exclaimed.

“What? No, of course not, why would you say that?”

“I’m only a student, without money or a trade yet. You’ll be the one feeding me – and you’re so industrious. I’m sure it’s not what you imagined from an alpha.”

“That’s not true at all,” Clement was quick to say. He would rather not that his husband was falsely convinced of Clement’s bad opinion of him. There was enough of an uphill battle to fight for his affections.

“But how could you not?” Benjamin asked. “I think most omegas want to be taken care of.”

 _Lord, he is young_ , Clement thought to himself. Young and inexperienced and with a head full of ideas how things should be rather than how reality dictated they often were; but apparently true in his concern Clement would not respect him, which at last managed to break through the fog of worry in Clement’s own head. If he wanted Clement’s regard, that was a good start, was it not? It would be worse if he didn’t care at all.

“God be true, I have no trouble working for my keep, Benjamin, or feeding my husband if need be. You are still training to be a physician, aren’t you? That’s a worthy goal to strive for. I don’t need you to give me anything.”

Benjamin shook his head.

“I suppose there’s a reason you never got married! You don’t need an alpha.”

“Well, that is… it’s not that I’m opposed to an alpha in the house. And my business is now yours by rights, so you needn’t worry about me paying for you. It’s your money.”

“I have no head for numbers, so I couldn’t help you.” Benjamin said sheepishly.

Relief fluttered in Clement’s stomach. Relinquishing his profits to a husband was one thing, but he happened to think he was quite good at his job and would have been very bored without it. He had feared that Benjamin’s alpha pride might not allow him to keep from meddling, despite little qualification to do so. At least if his marriage was not a success, Clement would still have a distraction.

“Oh, leave it all to me, then,” he said. “I have managed it those last years, it shouldn’t be a problem now. You concentrate on your studies.”

“I won’t make as much as you as a physician even when I’m done, I reckon,” Benjamin gave back. “I mean, I don’t want to be one of the ones that bleed people dry for treatment, you see?”

“That’s good of you. I wouldn’t want you to be,” Clement said, honestly. He’d rather have a husband with some honour than one with a lot of money, which he was well able to make himself. Even if he would probably not be his husband’s primary lover, he would still have to live around him, after all, and wear his last name to boot.

Benjamin leaned forward and grasped Clement’s hands. “How have you not gotten snatched up until now, dear Clement?”

Clement looked at him in blank surprise. “I don’t follow.”

“You are friendly and accomplished and pretty, too. I should think alphas follow you wherever you go.”

A startled laughter broke from his chest. It had been a decade at least since anyone had flirted with him. “That’s very charming of you.”

Benjamin cocked his head, almost pouting. “You think I’m not speaking the truth,” he declared, “but I’m not a liar.”

Before Clement could refute having said so, the carriage stopped. Benjamin peered curiously out the small window and, when it revealed little of what he wished to see, he opened the door. After climbing out, he courteously offered Clement his hand to help him out. He took it, happy for the friendly gesture.

The light of the street lamps revealed Clement’s house, a brick building of perhaps a hundred years of age, sitting at the corner of the street, which was there crossed by an alley leading to the river bank. In the front was a dark wooden door wearing a heavy iron knocker in form of a lioness’ head, which his mother had installed almost two decades ago now.

“The ground floor is the office,” Clement said, again, for want of filling the silence.

“Can you see the Thames looking out the windows?” Benjamin asked, gaze raking this way and that over the ivy-covered facade of the house.

“Yes, from the south side. Let me show you.”

After bidding the carriage driver goodbye, Clement opened up the small door at the side that led directly to the staircase which brought you to the first story of the building. He had a few paintings of ships hanging in the hallway, collected by his father back in the day, before consumption had taken him. He saw Benjamin looking them over as he led him to the last room to the left.

The door was already half-opened when Clement grew aware of his slip-up as he saw his bed and realised what else Benjamin could interpret from Clement bringing him straight to his chambers before even showing him into the sitting room for a moment. Clement’s face grew red. He hoped Benjamin couldn’t see it in the dark.

“This, uh, this is the best view on the river,” he explained, stammering, and busied himself with the oil lamp on the bedside table to not have to look at Benjamin.

Striding past him, Benjamin looked out.

“Beautiful!” he decided.

“You can’t really open the windows some days because of the steamers,” Clement said, as he slowly stepped up to him, looking past him at the street lamps at the quay shimmering on the surface of the Thames and a sleek cutter gliding on the river. “But I do love the sight.”

They stood in silence for a moment watching the wisps of fog drifting over the water before Benjamin turned to him, asking, without any preamble: “Did you arrange the marriage with my father?”

“My uncle is – was responsible for me,” Clement said, too surprised to soften the truth with some nicety.

“That explains why you seem so unsure. You didn’t really want me here, did you?” Benjamin surmised, not unkindly.

Clement swallowed. He had hoped not to have appeared so cold, but he knew he was not sociable like Benjamin seemed to be and his feelings were often on his face.

“No, you are… you should not take it as criticism of your person,” he managed. “It’s just that you’re very handsome and young and have a way with words. I’m sure you have your own prospects and they are more enticing to you than a man near old enough to be your father. I won’t ask you about it, as I know it’s not really my place and I’m sure you had no more hand in creating this marriage than me, so I can hardly lay a claim on your loyalty…”

“No claim on my loyalty? Of course you have one, you are my husband!” Benjamin grasped his shoulders again, but this time pulled him closer so that Clement had to lean back his head to look him in the eyes. Benjamin smiled. “I very much intend to lay claim on _your_ loyalty. I want you to be my omega alone. I would find it strange if you didn’t want the same of me.”

“Of course I _want_ it,” Clement said, before he could really think about how demanding he sounded in his haste to reassure Benjamin. There was so much here he had not expected, but all words aside, it was the firm, urging way in which Benjamin held him that impressed himself most deeply on his mind.

Benjamin grinned. “There’s no need to say otherwise, then. You should be true to your husband, even if it’s not so polite.”

His voice was light and teasing now and Clement couldn’t help but smile, his heartbeat stumbling. This was all very different from what he had imagined.

“As you wish,” he said.

There was a small pause. Clement glanced at the door. His nerves were alight now, with Benjamin’s hands on him.

“Should I, er, make us some tea, or…”

Again, Benjamin laughed at him.

“I think we’re to use this night for other things than drinking tea. Unless you want some?“

“Not particularly, no,” Clement admitted. “I just thought maybe-”

Clement’s sentence died on Benjamin’s lips as his husband kissed him. It took him a moment to swallow his stumbling words and lean in, and even as he did he felt clumsy, which Benjamin most definitely was not.

Pulling his head back, Benjamin’s grin had softened into a cheeky smile. He let his hands drift downwards to take possession of Clement’s and led him towards the bed. Clement had told the maid that came over a few times a week to put on fresh sheets this morning. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake. Perhaps Benjamin would have preferred for the bed to carry Clement’s omega scent? But he wouldn’t have wanted him to lie in old sheets.

“Have you done this before?” Benjamin asked, into Clement’s useless, circling thoughts.

The right answer, Clement knew, was ‘no’. Alphas liked to be the only ones to claim what belonged to them. Back when he was young enough to expect to be married, Clement had even abstained. However, as the years dragged on, his curiosity had driven him into a few short affairs, since he was convinced there was not going to be a husband or wife to save himself for. It was not something Benjamin could necessarily prove, of course, but Clement did not wish to start this marriage on a lie so substantial.

“Not in ten years,” he said, carefully, “but yes.”

“Well, so have I,” Benjamin admitted. “Ten years is a long time to go without, though. Do you not like it very much?”

 _My, he can be quite direct._ Clement pulled at the hem of his sleeve.

“No... but one doesn’t want a reputation, you understand,” he said, not sure if it was smart to admit to having enjoyed that sort of thing with other alphas in front of his husband.

“That’s true. I’m glad you didn’t hate it, though. I wouldn’t want us to wait a decade between each time...”

Clement gave an uncertain laugh as Benjamin sat down on the bed. This, at least, afforded an opportunity, something he could do right. He was quick to take it.

Clement sank to his knees on the carpet and pulled Benjamin’s shoes off.

Benjamin was quite still until suddenly, when Clement held his socks in hand, he exclaimed: “You’re actually doing the bedding ceremony!”, as if he had solved a puzzle. Looking up, Clement saw him grin. “That’s so old-fashioned.”

Clement could feel his cheeks grow warm. He’d learned that to show obedience to their mate, the omega was expected to undress them on the wedding night before stripping themselves down. Was this not done anymore? It was admittedly a long time since anyone had spoken about such customs to him, since no one had expected him to get married in a long while.

“My apologies,” he muttered, dropping the socks onto Benjamin’s shoes, horribly mortified. Old-fashioned, that was one way to put how Benjamin must see him. “I was taught to do it this way.” _Probably before you were born._

“No, continue! I think it’s very sweet,” Benjamin said, those warm dark eyes all alight.

Clement found that look overcame his shame, though just barely.

“If you would stand...”

“Yes!”

You could not fault Benjamin for not looking honestly enthusiastic. He was on his naked feet immediately. Clement took a deep breath and began unbuttoning his waist coat. This done, he walked around him to pull off the jacket, then the waist coat, and after that pulled apart his cravat and tended to the buttons of the last layer, the shirt. He was careful with the nice fabric and folded each piece up before putting it away, not tearing with haste at any part of them as he took them off. He placed Benjamin’s precious flower pin on top. It didn’t feel too subservient, he thought, but maybe that was just because Benjamin’s gaze was all open interest instead of blunt authority. It laid like a hand on Clement, and it was difficult to keep his breathing steady as he reached for the button on his trousers, eyes on the plane of Benjamin’s stomach, which was hard with muscle, and his broad chest dusted with dark hair.

Benjamin was a tall man and Clement found, as he knelt to slide off the trousers and underwear and gave his level best not to stare, that every part of him was certainly completely proportional. He waited for Benjamin to step out of his breeches and then draped those last items over the back of the desk chair. When he turned, he found it impossible to ignore that Benjamin’s cock had gotten stiff. Was that his doing? Well, Benjamin was young, it probably didn’t take much.

“My turn?” he asked Clement, reaching out for him.

“According to tradition, you have to watch,” Clement said, perhaps just a bit pleased with Benjamin’s impatience.

Benjamin huffed.

“They know how to keep you waiting, those traditionalists, don’t they?”

Though he had carefully negotiated around someone else’s body just moments ago, somehow Clement felt more ungainly ridding himself of his own clothes. Perhaps it was because he knew that now, unlike before, he was not unwrapping something that looked like an ancient gladiator’s statue come to life. Plain was the word people had used for him all his life; covered in freckles head to sole, and now that the years stacked on, a little softer than he used to be, if still reasonably slim. He had a number of scars, too, most from accidents on ships navigating wild seas. But – nothing to be done about all that now. He raised his hand and pulled the band out of his hair, allowing it to fall over his shoulders.

“Clement!” Benjamin said. “Why are you looking at your feet? Am I that ugly?”

“No, of course not,” Clement said, immediately snapping his gaze back up at him. “You are, well – breath-taking.”

It amused him, despite everything, that Benjamin preened a little under his comment.

“Is this it, then? Am I finally allowed to touch you?” Benjamin asked.

“Yes, I suppose so…”

Benjamin grasped him around the middle and pulled him tightly into his arms, his hard cock pressing into Clement’s belly. This was where decorum exited the room, Clement supposed, which should have been a relief, but really left him feeling just a little unmoored. Though he’d indulged before, it hadn’t been with the decree to keep a husband by his side, but just for its own sake. Still, he had the skills, did he not? If Benjamin could not have an unspoiled omega – not that he seemed to care terribly about it, to his credit –, then he could at least make use of what Clement had learned. Taking heart, Clement tilted his head up and got on his toes to kiss Benjamin on the lips.

“If you want to, I could use my mouth to pleasure you,” he offered quietly. “You’d just have to sit down on the edge of the bed.”

The flash in Benjamin’s eyes was well worth the embarassment. However, Benjamin held him tighter and shook his head.

“You’ve been so attentive. It’s my turn now,” he said, giving a toothy smile and lifting Clement clean off his feet and onto the bed, laying him out onto the sheets. Despite the strength behind it that Clement felt in the tension of his muscles, it was a tender gesture, and followed by more of the nature when Benjamin leaned down and kissed him on the neck, where alphas were so fond of sinking their teeth in.

When he moved down Clement’s body, it was slowly, stopping here and there when the touch of his fingers and mouth forced a quick breath from Clement and focusing on those spots with a mischievous smile, pushing his tongue into the dip over his collar bone, teasing his sides with his fingers, which were too ticklish and too sensitive, leaving Clement squirming, and digging his nails into the meat of Clement’s thighs, looking quite pleased with the soft pink marks on Clement’s skin. As he ran his hand down Clement’s leg, it stopped over the twisted patch of burned skin on his left calf, though.

“Where is this from?”

“Just an accident. I was being shown around the stokehold when a wave caught us. I fell against a grate. The burning coal spilled all over me,” Clement said, with a lopsided smile. “Not a terribly interesting story, I fear.”

“You go with the trading ships?”

“Sometimes, if I can afford to leave the office. It helps to keep an eye on things. When I was young, my mother would sent me on journeys a lot so I could see the reality of trade ship travel.”

“You’ve done so many interesting things.” 

“Well, when you’re as old as me, you’ll have done many interesting things, too.”

Benjamin laughed.

“I can hope. Maybe if you let me on one of your ships?”

He lifted Clement’s leg by the knee and pressed his lips to the burned skin. It didn’t cause a true sensation – the flesh was numb there –, but something about how stern Benjamin looked made Clement’s heart stumble. He needn’t have paid so much attention to such an imperfection, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all, and in fact he dropped Clement’s leg only to urgently push between his thighs, running his fingers up Clement’s hard cock and then down, letting it brush over his folds. It sent a little jolt through Clement to feel, with the easy slide of Benjamin’s fingers, how wet he was already, and he saw pleasant surprise spread over Benjamin’s face.

“You’re eager,” Benjamin purred, gently pushing a finger into the heat of his body.

“That’s not a nice thing to say, Benjamin,” Clement noted, ruefully, trying to keep his hips from pushing up so his _eagerness_ was not any more glaringly obvious.

“Why not? Did I embarrass you?” Grinning, Benjamin leaned over him, the shadow his body cast falling over Clement. “I hope you stay eager every night because I won’t be able to keep my hands off such a beautiful man for long.”

As if to emphasise his words, he moved his finger a little more roughly into him, a second prodding against the entrance. Clement felt a shudder working its way from his core, clenching around the intrusion, which was just not enough. Good God, Benjamin’s mouth was as talented as his hands. It was hard not to believe him. Those forward words tempted Clement to counter.

“Then why do you just tease me with your fingers? I’m ready and no inexperienced young thing, you needn’t be too careful with me.”

He wondered whether he had managed to make it sound as playful as he wanted, since he was really too self-conscious a person for skilful seduction, but given the fact that Benjamin all but crashed their mouths together after staring at him for a moment, he seemed to have plucked the right string to get the note he wanted. Clement spread his legs to accommodate Benjamin better, shifting his hips a little as Benjamin pulled out his finger.

“I’m bigger, so I do worry,” he said against Clement’s mouth.

“I’ve noticed. It’s fine,” Clement answered. Usually, you might mock a man for talking himself up like that, but he could see right in front of his eyes why Benjamin would be careful with his lovers if he planned to put all that into them. Still, Clement had enough experience to gauge whether he could handle it.

Smiling, Benjamin grabbed on to his thighs and shifted them to his liking. Clement closed his eyes for a moment. He wanted to focus on the feeling of his husband inside of him for the first time, and he figured he would have to consciously relax, but when he finally felt him push in, it was surprisingly easy to take him, pleasure going through Clement like a series of small explosions. Involuntarily, his legs closed around Benjamin’s middle, dragging him closer. Benjamin gave a rough chuckle, but Clement could not rightly care about his mocking anymore.

Benjamin gathered Clement up in his arms to kiss him, lifting his shoulders off the pillows, and Clement wrapped his arms around his neck. The position left him so close he could feel his cock rubbing against the plane of Benjamin’s stomach with every thrust, in synergy with Benjamin moving inside him. He dug his hand into his dark curls as he pushed down onto him.

Benjamin’s harsh breath grew more ragged with every movement, and when Clement, with a small voice all careful consideration, started asking him for more, he gave a groan that was deep and rumbling.

“I love the way you feel,” Benjamin said, as he carefully deposited him back on the bed and leaned back to grab his hips.

Clement did not stand up to much of this treatment, his strikes into him so forceful and deep. Something in his core seemed to go melting hot, dragging his peak out so long he was gagging for air by the end, and Benjamin still moving with unrelenting, amazing force. When Benjamin finally spent himself, Clement found himself almost glad it was over, yet immediately craved a repeat, even as his body was shivering with too much feeling, too many sensations.

As Benjamin gently pulled out of him and then beamed at Clement before embracing him, Clement found a strange melancholy breaking through the waning euphoria. He’d been prepared to face a marriage with little happiness; he’d not thought to be shown a glimpse of something so enjoyable by a man so easy to be around. It would be a much harder landing when it came down now.

-

“You smell good.”

Clement all but jumped in his chair, just managing not to spill the ink pot over the inventory he’d been writing. Behind him sounded Benjamin’s loud laugh as his husband kissed him on the nape of his neck and straightened. He looked dashing as usual dressed in his grey suit, the slim leather bag in which he kept his notes from the university lectures in hand.

“I didn’t even hear you come in,” Clement said, as he put his pen aside.

“No surprise, you were so deep in thought.” Benjamin sat down on the edge of his office desk. “It’s strange how you can concentrate at a time like this.”

“Well, I figured I would get as much done as I could before my mind completely clouds over.”

Benjamin nodded his head. “You seem close now. I passed by the grocer to get some dried dates. Omegas should eat plenty of sugar during the heat to keep their strength up.”

Clement had to smile.

“Did you learn that at university?”

“It’s not so bad being married to a future physician, after all, is it?” 

Benjamin reached over to cup Clement’s face and, with his mind already preparing to throw his reason off a cliff, Clement found himself shifting in his chair immediately, his whole body bending towards Benjamin like a flower to the sun.

Four weeks after the wedding, he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it just didn’t seem to want to happen. Benjamin acted for all the world in love and Clement was growing more fond of him with each passing hour. Their nights were busy and in the days, Benjamin was only out with his friends every once in a while, otherwise returning to Clement so they could spend their time getting to know each other. Clement had shown him around all the ships currently in haven and introduced Benjamin to his workers, who all liked him because Clement was quite sure it was impossible not to do so, even as he could imagine they were talking behind their backs about the unusual match. In turn, Clement did his best to remember all the Latin and Greek words that Benjamin learned to describe his trade so he could follow his tales from university. He also tried to be always friendly to his fellow students, even when they made humorous, pointed remarks about him that they figured the old merchant wasn’t bright enough to understand. Still, those were easy to bear now, for when they had done it in front of Benjamin once, he’d grown quite angry, which hadn’t been necessary, for Clement had a thick skin, but had certainly been vindicating. That moment when he’d held Clement against his side as he snapped at his comrades that his husband would not be disrespected was stored in Clement’s mind like a precious jewel in a box.

“If you stay here, I won’t be able to hold it off for long,” Clement admitted, curling his fingers around Benjamin’s hand on his face.

“Do you have to do that now, or can it wait until in a couple of days?” Benjamin asked, pointing at the papers on the desk.

“It might have to,” Clement said, pushing himself up and into Benjamin’s arms.

Oh yes, if it did go wrong, it would be a long, long fall, leaving him with a shattered heart. But Clement dared to hope that perhaps that was not the inevitable outcome.


End file.
